Any Scots in the Coachella Valley?

[Jock Scot]

Crumbs! In my British way, I think I would pronounce that as, Coach(as in stage coach) ellah: Coach-ellah. All in one .

[ktk1961]

Crumbs! In my British way, I think I would pronounce that as, Coach(as in stage coach) ellah: Coach-ellah. All in one .

That's actually how I hear it pronounced.

[SF Jeff]

That's actually how I hear it pronounced.

I meant to comment on this earlier, that "COACH-ella" is one pronounciation I've never heard, and yet that would seem to be the most obvious one. My whole life I heard the O and the A pronounced separately, thereby adding a fourth syllable. But when the big music festival started, I think for many people that may have been the first time they ever heard the name and with that came a new pronunciation, but I have to defer to OC Rich here because he lived in area, whereas I was only an occasional visitor, so he would know better than me.

[OC Richard]

Crumbs! In my British way, I think I would pronounce that as, Coach(as in stage coach) ellah: Coach-ellah. All in one .

Yep that's one of the things about place-names, looking at the word you can't know where the stress is.

2nd syllable cuh-CHELL-uh (where locals put the stress)

1st syllable CO-chull-uh (putting the stress on the 1st syllable)

I've heard British people say BAL-ee where Americans usually say bal-EY (the dance) and BUFF-ee where Americans usually say buff-EY (a type of restaurant) and GAIR-idge while Americans usually say guh-RAJH (where you're supposed to put your car but Brits appear to rarely do so).

Anyhow here's some local place-names to have fun trying to pronounce

Jumilla
Tuolumne
Tujunga
Cahuenga
Trabuco
Jurupa
Tassajara
Ojai
and last but not least Hueneme.

[Jock Scot]

OCR.

It depends which part of the UK the person comes from,
accents can change within parts of towns and County areas surrounding it.So much so that those familiar with those accents can place people extremely accurately, within yards sometimes. Since multi-national TV and films being so prolific , these distinct local words and accents have been watered down somewhat. Thankfully these accents do still exist, but on the whole they are much less broad than they used to be, but even now there is no standard accent or standard pronounciation within the UK, in spite of the Oxford Dictionary’s valiant efforts over the last of couple of centuries or so , to guide us with their phonetic spelling guide with each word.

[SF Jeff]

Anyhow here's some local place-names to have fun trying to pronounce

Jumilla
Tuolumne
Tujunga
Cahuenga
Trabuco
Jurupa
Tassajara
Ojai
and last but not least Hueneme.

Tuolomne gave me and my friends fits when we went backpacking there in our early teens. We assumed "tow-LOOM-nee" and it wasn't until we got to Yosemite that we were corrected by a park ranger when we picked up our permits. There are two pronunciations that I know of: too-WALL-uh-mee or too-WALL-um-nee, the first being the more common.

Hueneme. Years ago when working in the Bay Area, a native BA co-worker came across this when working with google maps and was clueless to the pronunciation. I bet her $100 that she couldn't pronounce it and after a few comical attempts I told her (why-NEE-mee). I didn't want the money, but she insisted on buying me lunch to make good on the bet.

As a native Socal-er the rest are easy to pronounce because they are all more or less of Spanish origin, and back in the day I could speak passable Spanish but not so much any more (use it or lose it as they say). Cahuilla (near Coachella) could be added to the list also.

[OC Richard]

As a native Socal-er the rest are easy to pronounce because they are all more or less of Spanish origin.

What makes names tricky is that many are Native American, but are spelt using Spanish orthography. Had English speakers got here first their spelling would be easy for English speakers to interpret.

It's why eastern US Native American names aren't as hard to pronounce for us.

Interesting in this regard is Manx. Though related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic it's written using English orthography, thus looking "phonetic" to us.

[Canadian Vet]

Britons cannot pronounce Newfoundland the way that the inhabitants of that place do despite that island being the last British possession in northern North America.
In the UK that say: new-FOUND-land and the Newfies say the exact opposite : NEW-fund-LAND

[Jock Scot]

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In the UK that say: new-FOUND-land-------

This Brit. certainly does.

[OC Richard]

In the UK they say new-FOUND-land and the Newfies say the exact opposite, NEW-fund-LAND

Interesting!

I've always said it NEW-fund-lund, stressing only the first syllable, probably because of things like "overland trail" (OH-vur-lund) and "Sugarland Express" (SURE-gur-lund).

As opposed to putting stress on "land" as in "over land, over sea" (OH-vur-LAND, OH-vur-SEE).